The Symposium “Ukraine: Escape from Post-Soviet Legacy?” took place in Kyiv

 On April 24-16, 2015 the Symposium “Ukraine: Escape from Post-Soviet Legacy?” for a Special Issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics was held in Kyiv.

The
Symposium was organized by VoxUkraine and the Kyiv School of
Economics in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley,
the University of Pittsburgh, Stockholm Institute of Transition
Economics, the USAID Program “Leadership
in Economic Governance”, the
Association for Comparative Economic Studies, the
Western NIS Enterprise Fund and KyivStar. Media partners of the event
were Espreso.tv, KyivPost, Ukrpravda , LIGABusinessInform
, Novoe Vremya,
Delo.ua, Hromadske.tv,
ICTV.

The
symposium was devoted to a special issue of the Journal of
Comparative Economics on Ukraine, whose editors are co-founders and
members of the VoxUkraine Editorial Board, Tymofiy Mylovanov,
Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Yuriy
Gorodnichenko, Associate Professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, The event gathered world-class researchers and leading
policymakers to provide an expert assessment of recent developments
in Ukraine, generate global support to Ukraine, propose solutions to
Ukraine’s
pressing problems, facilitate dialogue between academics and
policymakers and to connect Ukraine’s
policymakers and scientists to the global network of experts.

The
program included both academic and policy panels.

A
number of prominent speakers participated in the event, including US
Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey
Pyatt,
Ambassador of Sweden to Ukraine Andreas
von Beckerath,
EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan
Tombiński,
Governor of the National Bank Valeria
Hontareva,
Minister of Finance Natalie
Jaresko,
Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras
Abromavičius,
Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine Volodymyr
Demchyshyn,
Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Oleksiy
Pavlenko,
Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Andriy
Pyvovarsky,
First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine
Sasha
Borovik,
First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Inna
Sovsun,
Deputy Head of the National Bank of Ukraine Dmytro
Sologoub,
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for the European
Integration Olena
Zerkal,
Former US Ambassador to Ukraine John
Herbst,
Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Bulgaria
Simeon
Djankov,
James T. Shotwell Professor of Global Political Economy and Director
of the Center on Global Economic Governance at Columbia University
Jan
Svejnar,
Editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics and  Professor
of Economics and Political Science at the University of
California-Berkeley Gerard
Roland,
President of the Kyiv School of Economics George
Logush,
Professor of Economics at Higher School of Economics Konstantin
Sonin,
Slovak former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Ivan
Miklos and
former Prime Minister of Slovakia Mikuláš
Dzurinda,
and others.

Please
see the agenda here

Video
and presentations
of the speakers can be found here

Please
see the photo
report
of the Symposiumhere

Quotes
from some of the speeches can be found below:.

Natalie
Jaresko: “The
situation in Ukraine is much more difficult that in any other country
including Greece. Our Government is determined to fulfil its reform
program and reduce the total public finance deficit in 2015 to 8.8%,
from 11.6%.”

Valeria
Hontareva: “We
truly believe our economy will start growing this year. In 2 months I
hope we will announce that the 1st stage of reforms is completed. 25%
of Ukrainian banks have disappeared, but don’t regret about them,
they were zombie banks.”

Geoffrey
Pyatt: “Corruption
is as much a threat to Ukraine as Russian tanks.
Only Ukrainians can decide how their future will be.”

Jan
Tombinski: “The
big wisdom in politics is to go through pain of reforms and to absorb
changes”

George
Logush: “What
encourages us all is the extremely active civil society that supports
reforms that are underway. We have a difficult challenge in making
sure that mass channels become effective instruments of communicating
reforms.”

Gerard
Roland: “Corruption
chains reinforce each other and everyone keeps silent. No democracy
is perfect, but other regimes are always worse in the long run.
Democratic institutions cannot function without democratic culture.”

Erik
Berglof: “Ukraine is not just any country. It’s key for Russia’s
future and a “litmus test” for the EU. Systematic
uncertainty where Ukraine moves affects key decisions. Ukraine needs
energy, national identity and radicalised civil society.”

Oleksiy
Pavlenko: “We have great potential. There are 4.2 mln individual
farmers in Ukraine. 37% of export of Ukraine consists of agri
products. Ukraine has a goal to be in top-50 exporters of agriculture
by the end of year.”

Mikulas
Dzurinda: “I am a peace keeper. But we need to be strong. We should
provide Ukraine with military assistance. Everybody in Europe must do
his best to help Ukraine. But the ownership of reforms should be
Ukrainian. Speaking about FTA we should speak about the sustainable
development of Ukraine”.

Aivaras
Abromavičius: ”The lowest point in economic of Ukraine was passed.
We need to educate entrepreneurship in children from an early age. In
Sweden, children are buying shares or open online stores. The state
owes 6 million hectares of agricultural land. With a rate of 50 $ per
hectare of land more than 300 million dollars a year can be assembled
in the budget .“

Ivan
Miklos:
“Nowadays
Ukraine should make a decision between radical reforms and hopeless
changes.”

INTERESTING
STATISTICS of the SYMPOSIUM prepared by VOX is available here.